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BURMA RELATED NEWS - May 18, 2003.
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HEADLINES
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AFP - SE Asian
security at risk if Indonesian, Philippine insurgencies blow
up
AFP - Tourist tower
at Myanmar's Pagan to go ahead despite protest: report
VOA News - US
Renews Burma Sanctions
Asian Tribune -
Thailand-Myanmar to sign MOU on second bridge over River Sai
The Daily Star -
Bangladesh has world's lowest teledensity: ITU
Mizzima - India,
Burma to fence the border
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Sunday May 18,
10:52 AM
SE Asian security at risk if Indonesian, Philippine
insurgencies blow up
MANILA (AFP) - Separatist insurgencies in the Philippines
and Indonesia are threatening to flare up into full scale wars that could
unhinge Southeast Asian security and hinder the region's battle against
terrorism, officials and analysts say.
The Indonesian military was
readying aircraft, warships and troops for an assault on Aceh province even as
Japan hosted last-ditch talks at the weekend to avert a return to war between
Jakarta and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).
In the Philippines, the
government has given a June 1 deadline to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front
(MILF), the country's largest Muslim separatist group, to disavow alleged
terrorist links or face the full wrath of the military.
Landmark
ceasefire pacts forged to end the nearly three-decade-old battles for
independence in the two countries are in tatters.
Analysts warn that
full-blown war will also further internationalise the conflicts and raise the
prospect of more US anti-terror troops entering Southeast Asia, to the chagrin
of governments and groups opposed to foreign military presence in the
region.
Andrew Tan, a security analyst at the Singapore-based Institute
of Defence and Strategic Studies, said Indonesian President Megawati
Sukarnoputri and Philippine leader Gloria Arroyo could be taking advantage of
the global war on terror to end the separatist campaigns at home.
"There
are nationalist right-wing elements in the Philippines and Indonesia pressing
for a military solution to the conflicts, but the repercussions of such a
strategy in terms of regional security and stability are enormous," he
said.
He cited extensive loss of civilian lives and an influx of refugees
to particularly neighbouring Malaysia as among the consequences.
Malaysia
already houses hundreds of thousands of refugees from the southern Philippines
who arrived during the height of the Moro rebellion in the mid-1970s. Hundreds
of Aceh refugees also reside in that country.
More than 10,000 people
have died in the Aceh conflict while tens of thousands of Filipinos had perished
during the 25-year-old MILF rebellion.
"We hope the Indonesian government
will take the necessary measures to prevent war or political tension in Aceh.
Its (Indonesia's) economic and political stability is pivotal to ASEAN's
well-being," Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar has said.
Aside
from Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia, the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand
and Vietnam.
Malaysia has been acting as facilitator in peace talks
between the Philippines and the MILF, but Manila last week cancelled further
meetings after a series of bloody attacks by the rebels.
"We must fight
back now or face greater peril in the future," Arroyo declared Saturday as she
ordered selective aerial and artillery attacks on MILF hideouts.
The
12,500-strong MILF wants to set up an Islamic state in the southern third of the
mainly Roman Catholic Philippine archipelago, while the 5,000-odd GAM has been
fighting for independence in energy-rich Aceh in western Sumatra
island.
If the conflicts, which had been largely contained of late,
flared up into full blown wars, they would open the doors for greater American
military presence and complicate the region's battle against terrorism, said
Clarita Carlos, political science professor at the University of the
Philippines.
"President George Bush has already declared that his
government would hunt down terrorists no matter where they are if the
governments concerned do not do enough to contain them," she noted.
"So
if the conflicts blow up, they would be like midwivery to more terrorism in the
region," Carlos said, blaming "lack of basic trust and goodwill" for the dual
problems. "War is a failure of diplomacy."
For more than a year, US
troops have been helping the Philippine military battle the Abu Sayyaf
kidnap-for-ransom group, branded terrorists by both governments.
Carlos
said Washington might train its guns on the MILF if Arroyo went ahead with her
threat to brand the separatist group a terrorist organisation after the June 1
deadline.
The MILF has been linked to the Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast
Asian chapter of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
Tan believed
Megawati could also tag the Aceh rebels as terrorists to cut off GAM's key links
in Europe although he said there are "no proven links" between GAM and
al-Qaeda.
He said even if the military prevailed in an all-out conflict
in Indonesia and the Philippines, "the underlying resentment against the central
governments will not dissipate and will only engender more problems in the
future."
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Sunday May 18, 2:13 PM
Tourist tower at Myanmar's Pagan to go ahead despite
protest: report
YANGON, May 18 (AFP) - Myanmar authorities have defended plans for
a 60-meter (200-foot) observation tower at the ancient city of Pagan and said
construction would go ahead despite concern expressed by the United Nations.
A report due Monday in the Myanmar Times citing hotels and tourism
director-general U Khin Maung Latt said the tower would prevent tourists from
climbing on fragile pagodas and stupas to enjoy sunset views of one of Southeast
Asia's most important archaeological heritage sites.
Pagan, a historic
collection of thousands of 11th and 12th century Buddhist monuments covering
some 40 square kilometers in remote central Myanmar, is the nation's second most
visited tourist attraction after Shwedagon pagoda in Yangon.
The tower,
to be built next to a golf course in what is officially known as the Bagan
Archaeological Zone, is modeled along traditional architectural lines and will
be in harmony with its surroundings, U Khin Maung Latt said, and will only
enhance tourism at Pagan.
The Htoo Construction Company planned to begin
work on the tower "as soon as possible," U Khin Maung Latt said in the
semi-official weekly.
Photographs in the official New Light of Myanmar
last month showed the military government's leaders inspecting plans for the
tower, a metallic cylindrical structure with a coned rooftop and an observation
deck.
Construction on the Nanmying (High Palace) tower would take one
year to complete, the New Light said.
Plans for the structure catering
to paying tourists have alarmed preservationists at UNESCO, the United Nations
cultural body, which is in protracted negotiations with Yangon to list Pagan as
Myanmar's first World Heritage site.
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Asia Pacific - US Renews Burma
Sanctions
VOA News
17 May 2003, 18:43
UTC
President Bush has renewed sanctions against the Burmese
government, saying the country is a threat to U.S. national security.
The White House issued a statement Friday, saying Mr. Bush granted a
one-year extension to limits first imposed against Burma in 1997. The measures
prevent U.S. direct investment in the country, which has been under military
rule since 1988.
Friday's statement also accused the Burmese government
of committing large-scale repression of political opponents.
The
Associated Press reports the Burmese government has responded to the move with
surprise, calling it "too complicated to understand."
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Asian Tribune
Date :
2003-05-18
Thailand-Myanmar to sign MOU on second bridge over River
Sai
Chiang Rai, May 17, (TNA): Thailand and Myanmar are
to sign a memorandum of understanding on the construction of a second bridge
linking the two countries over the River Sai, aimed at boosting tourism,
communications and trade in the Golden Triangle region, the Chiang Rai
provincial governor announced today.
Mr Narin Panichakij said that
Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai and Gen Khin Yun, secretary-general of
Myanmar?s Security and Development Council, would sign the MOU and lay the
foundation stone for the bridge on Monday morning.
The new two-lane
bridge, which will be built from reinforced concrete, will link Baan San Phak
Hee in Mae Sai District with Baan Mae Pao in Myanmar, and is located around 2.9
kilometres from the present bridge. The total budget for constructing the bridge
and upgrading approach roads will run to around Bt38
million.
Construction of the bridge, which has long been on the cards,
forms part of a general plan by Thailand and Myanmar to facilitate
communication, tourism and trade links between the two countries, as well as to
develop towns in the border region, demonstrate good bilateral relations and
stimulate the regional economy.
Mr Phachorn Sinsawat, head of the Mae Sai
customs division, said that the new bridge would help ease pressure on the
existing bridge, which was inconvenient for the parking of large goods
vehicles.
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The Daily Star - Sun. May 18, 2003
Bangladesh has world's lowest teledensity: ITU
Star
Report
Bangladesh's teledensity is one of the lowest in South Asia
as well as in the world, according to statistics of the International
Telecomm-unication Union (ITU).
Only 0.63 of 100 people enjoyed the
communication facility, the latest statistics presented at a seminar yesterday
marking World Telecommunication Day 2003 showed.
The 2002 data placed
Bangladesh at slot number 21st from the bottom on the list of 196 ITU member
states with 0.51 teledensity, way down from the Maldives with 10.27, Sri Lanka
with 4.66 and India with 3.98. Then the figures for Bhutan were 2.84, Pakistan
2.48, Nepal 1.41 and Myanmar 0.61.
Bangladesh remained only ahead of
war-raged Afghanistan in the Asian region.
Globally, the US topped the
list with 65.89 and United Kingdom with 58.74, Japan with 58.58, Korea with
48.86, Malaysia with 19.79 and China with 16.69 were other world leaders.
Currently Bangladesh has 9,20,000 fixed telephone lines of which
8,95,000 have been installed by the state-owned Bangladesh Telegraph and
Telephone Board (BTTB) and 25,000 by Sheba and the Bangladesh Rural Telecom
Authority (BRTA). The number of cellular phones provided by four operators in
foreign joint ventures stands at 12,64,000.
BTTB has 7,70,000 lines in
urban areas where Dhaka alone has 4,56,000 lines.
The teledensity
remained poor as the government allocated only a small fraction of its Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) in telecommunications, Fazlur Rahman, former chairman of
the BTTB and an official of the Association of Telecom Operators in Bangladesh
(ATOB), told the seminar.
The spending pales in comparison with that of
other SAARC countries, he added.
The government allocated around Tk
1,800 crore for the telecom sector in the 2002-03 fiscal while it had earned
around Tk 1,580 crore from BTTB alone in the 2001-02 fiscal.
The BTTB,
which went completely digital in urban area last month, still has 37.5 per cent
analogue telephones in rural areas.
In Internet use, Bangladesh's
position in South Asia was 2nd with 1.53 Internet user per 1,000 people against
0.21 by Myanmar, the lowest in the region.
The Maldives again topped the
list with 53.76, followed by India with 15.91, Bhutan with 14.46, Sri Lanka with
10.56, Pakistan with 3.45 and Nepal with 2.64.
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India, Burma to fence the border
Mizzima News
May 17, 2003:
India and Burma have decided to carry out
a detailed study survey for fencing along the international border to check
militancy and drug trafficking, Mizzima correspondent in India reported
today.
The 1,624 kilometer-long Indo-Burma border will be fenced
soon, said our reporter citing the sources in the government.
The
entire Indo-Burma border has been tense for the last several years in view of
the activities of militant groups and unabated drug
trafficking.
Three states of the northeast India - Nagaland,
Mizoram and Manipur - bordering with Burma are witnessing cross-border
insurgency and drug trafficking.
The percentage of drug addicts in
these states is increasing at an alarming rate.
According to Indian
security forces, during the last couple of years over 200 security personnel and
the civilian were killed in the militancy-related violence in the northeast
India.
To gear up security along the Indo-Burma border, the Assam
Rifles have replaced the Border Security Force (BSF) and have been entrusted the
responsibility of carrying out operations to flush out the insurgents from the
region.
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